Digital Foundry and console warriors alternate realities *spawn*

[Nesh]

The greater than good health of the PC is unquestionable. We must add to that that the data that the sum of those profits more than double that of all the consoles together.

And then there is the games. Using Metacritic: 179 games are considered very good (75 or more). And there are 46 exclusive games -no console comes close to that, this is being the worst consoles generation I know of-

What are these games?

Sent from my SM-J320F using Tapatalk

 

[DavidGraham]

We bought a bunch of Fury X cards in March and a bunch of 1080s in August/September.

Interesting choices, wouldn't having two different architectures create problems in running the code with consistency? Or are you assigning each node to a specific workload?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Interesting choices, wouldn't having two different architectures create problems in running the code with consistency? Or are you assigning each node to a specific workload?

They run different workloads.

 

[zed]

The market for PC gaming hardware is rapidly expanding

yes rapidly expanding ...... and where are you getting this measurable data from?
as in actual accepted data ...., as in not some dudes rant on a web forum ... no dave your mates colin's cousin is not acceptable.
We have seen Steam (by far the largest PC game software seller has stalled from its already small number) so where is this rapid expansion happening? on Mars (elons not there yet mate), AI? (would that even count)

 

[zed]

When disputing arguments with alternative arguments it's generally good practice to post links to your version.

Yes True,
the alternative is also to actually read my post, esp the first few words "Saw this on Arstechnica" and then perhaps google Arstechnica which you will find out its quite a popular tech website, where then you could perhaps read said article.
Sorry if this sound condescending but its surely we dont have to provide links to every easily searchable -> www.google.com thing, google.com btw is a ,ethod where you can search the internet, internet = "A global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols:"
just playing with you mate ... but sheesh you asked for it

 

[DavidGraham]

yes rapidly expanding ...... and where are you getting this measurable data from?

We are talking hardware here not software, people upgrade and change their purchasing habits. See JPR numbers I quoted in my post. They actually surevy the market. If your best defense against their numbers is Steam statistics, then I suggest you start coming up with a more solid counterargument.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Money doesn't necessarily indicate expansion. Consider 10 million PC gamers. In 2008 they all buy $140 GPUs. In 2010 they all upgrade to $170 GPUs. In 2012, $200 GPUs. 2014, $230 GPUs. Revenue for GPUs is going up and up, but the market is the same 10 million gamers. We can't assume their old GPUs go on to new gamers or anything. We could also be looking at PC gamers creating second living-room boxes.

Really not much clear data at all AFAICS. Only lots of facts and their alternatives for us to try and piece together.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Yes True,
the alternative is also to actually read my post, esp the first few words "Saw this on Arstechnica" and then perhaps google Arstechnica which you will find out its quite a popular tech website, where then you could perhaps read said article.
Sorry if this sound condescending

Yes, it does sound condescending, because it is. Dropping a tech sites name into your post in nowhere near sufficient enough to back up specific claims. You should link directly to the article that you're referencing. And the Arstechnica article you refer to does nothing to back up your claim that " JPR are just pulling numbers out of their asses". On what information do you base that claim? Do you even know how JPR source those numbers for you to begin to discredit them? Do you have an alternate source of numbers which contradict the JPR numbers?

Without any of that then I'm afraid I'm more inclined to believe the "alternative facts" are coming from the guy on an internet forum who seems to have a beef over high PC hardware sales vs the professional computer graphics consultancy firm.

We have seen Steam (by far the largest PC game software seller has stalled from its already small number) so where is this rapid expansion happening?

"Already small number"? Steam recently hit 14m concurrent users on a total user base of at least 175m. These are small numbers to you? How many PS4's are there in total? 50m? And furthermore, the number of total users, concurrent users, and game sales revenues through Steam is rising rapidly.

And here are the links to back all that up:

http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-passes-14-million-concurrent-users-for-first-time-ever/
http://www.pcgamer.com/the-2016-steam-summer-sale-was-a-smashing-success/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/308330/number-stream-users/

See how easy that is?

 

[zed]

Yes, it does sound condescending, because it is. Dropping a tech sites name into your post in nowhere near sufficient enough to back up specific claims. You should link directly to the article that you're referencing. And the Arstechnica article you refer to does nothing to back up your claim that " JPR are just pulling numbers out of their asses".

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...-gaming-pc-market-grows-faster-than-expected/

On what information do you base that claim? Do you even know how JPR source those numbers for you to begin to discredit them? Do you have an alternate source of numbers which contradict the JPR numbers?
Without any of that then I'm afraid I'm more inclined to believe the "alternative facts" are coming from the guy on an internet forum who seems to have a beef over high PC hardware sales vs the professional computer graphics consultancy firm.

Explain how JPR came to these previous conclusions

JPR data 2014: PC hardware revenue is 100% larger than console hardware revenue
JPR data 2015: PC hardware revenue is 15% smaller than console hardware revenue

"Already small number"? Steam recently hit 14m concurrent users on a total user base of at least 175m. These are small numbers to you? How many PS4's are there in total? 50m? And furthermore, the number of total users, concurrent users

, If you read all my posts you'll see I was talking about revenue not number of people, yes I agree theres far more ppl using a PC but games tend to sell for way less money (IIRC the average selling price on steam is under $10 a game)
NPD which counts only the USA saw physical(i.e. no DLC or downloaded games or subscriptions) console software sales of $5.17 Billion in 2015 (can't find 2016's numbers). OTOH Steam saw $3.5 Billion worldwide in 2015

and game sales revenues through Steam is rising rapidly.

Thats not what these dudes are claiming
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/28661...n-estimated-35-billion-in-business-last-year/
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/28661...n-estimated-35-billion-in-business-last-year/

the guy on an internet forum who seems to have a beef over high PC hardware sales vs the professional computer graphics consultancy firm.

This guy has only owned one console, atari 2600 and thus hasnt contributed to any of the above console revenue figures, I did buy a gfx card last year though so I could drive my 4k monitor @ 60hz, So no doubt I contributed to the above PC gaming revenue figures, even though I don't really game on it, I gave up gaming decades ago

 

[Davros]

Explain how JPR came to these previous conclusions

I may be able to
both consoles came out at the end of 2013 a lot of people waited for them to have a decent sized library before buying, so most purchases would of been at christmas 2014
and theres a chance 2014 sales were collected at the end of 2014 but not so near the end that they included the christmas sales and those got added to the 2015 sales numbers
or I may be wrong

 

[pjbliverpool]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...-gaming-pc-market-grows-faster-than-expected/

Explain how JPR came to these previous conclusions

JPR data 2014: PC hardware revenue is 100% larger than console hardware revenue
JPR data 2015: PC hardware revenue is 15% smaller than console hardware revenue

I don't need to. They are a professional research organisation. In the absence of any counter information, I choose to believe their conclusions. Do you have any counter information to justify me doubting them?

As to the large swing, there could be any number of reasons, but one obvious one that jumps off the top of my head is that the massively popular 750Ti, GTX 970 and GTX980 all released in 2014 whereas 2015 didn't have anything remotely as popular.

If you read all my posts you'll see I was talking about revenue not number of people, yes I agree theres far more ppl using a PC but games tend to sell for way less money (IIRC the average selling price on steam is under $10 a game)
NPD which counts only the USA saw physical(i.e. no DLC or downloaded games or subscriptions) console software sales of $5.17 Billion in 2015 (can't find 2016's numbers). OTOH Steam saw $3.5 Billion worldwide in 2015

But initial sales revenue is not the only source of revenue. On PC the main source is subscriptions and DLC. When taken together, PC games sales for 2016 were (at least earlier in the year) expected t be higher than consoles. Not just the PS4 - all consoles.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/playing-games-on-the-pc-is-making-a-comeback/

 

[zed]

As to the large swing, there could be any number of reasons, but one obvious one that jumps off the top of my head is that the massively popular 750Ti, GTX 970 and GTX980 all released in 2014 whereas 2015 didn't have anything remotely as popular.

But nvidias own figures they show they made more revenue in 2015 than 2014 which sorta shoots down that theory

Dude I don't know if you've heard but PC have been dropping for years eg heres the latest figures from a couple of weeks ago
http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/lenovo-hp-dell-pc-market/

The struggling market for desktop computers and laptops suffered another tough year.Overall shipments of PCs dropped 5.7% year-over-year in 2016 to 260 million, according to a report Wednesday by market research firm International Data Corporation.

Yet with all this data of year after year declines in actual PC's sold, we get told the PC gaming market is actually rapidly growing, Dunno I'm not buying it. I believe they're just playing hard and loose with the numbers, eg every single graphics card even if its not used for gaming is counted as Gaming hardware, hey why not add in CPU's as well, surely some of those are 'gaming hardware', why not add in keyboards they can be used for games too right?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yet with all this data of year after year declines in actual PC's sold, we get told the PC gaming market is actually rapidly growing.

It's not that unlikely. Any number of desktop owners could be introduced to Steam, especially during a Steam sale where their friend PC Gamer, and that counts as software sales. Any number of these old desktops could be fitted with GPUs to make them decent gaming rigs because the CPUs, even little ones, are powerful enough. Any number could be receiving the previous GPU of an upgrading friend and turned into a gaming machine for free on the part of the owner (that's how my old gaming PC used to run, with me getting the old card of a more serious PC owning friend).

The PC gaming market isn't defined by hardware sales, unlike consoles. If no desktops or laptops sold at all this year, the PC market in terms of software sales and unique users could still hypothetically double in size by existing machines getting GPUs, or even just buying little titles that run on the integrated graphics. Awesomenauts, a PS3 and PS4 game, runs on my integrated gaphics just fine, so I became a PC gamer without having to spend a penny above what I already had.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

If no desktops or laptops sold at all this year, the PC market in terms of software sales and unique users could still hypothetically double in size by existing machines getting GPUs, or even just buying little titles that run on the integrated graphics.

Yup. Intel's integrated graphics have come along in leaps and bounds making plenty of inexpensive laptops not aimed at gaming more than capable of running a higher proportion of games at lower settings compared to the slideshow it would have been just five years back. Game minimum hardware requirements haven't moved much but the raw performance of cheap hardware certainly has so the market can shrink with gaming being an option for more people.

 

[zed]

Any number of desktop owners could be introduced to Steam, especially during a Steam sale where their friend PC Gamer, and that counts as software sales.

Yeah but man, the latest yearly sales data showed that Steam's revenue was essentially static year on year, so its not the hardware and its not Steam (3/4 of sales software occur there according to pjbliverpools link)

 

[DavidGraham]

John Peddie has published the report detailing Q4 GPU results:
Discrete GPUs gained market over integrated and the attach rate increased in Q4 from last year and is now 141%.
http://jonpeddie.com/publications/market_watch

Clearly, more people purchased dGPUs than ever in 2016.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Clearly, more people purchased dGPUs than ever in 2016.

Like server farms.

 

[DavidGraham]

Like server farms.

Yeah, compute is one of the driving forces behind the uplift in GPU sales. When you put this data next to the earlier report detailing how high end gaming hardware of all kinds (CPUs, monitors, keyboards, mouses .. etc) experienced a substantial increase in sales, then the bigger picture starts to form. More gamers purchased gaming hardware in 2016 than ever.

 

[zed]

Clearly, more people purchased dGPUs than ever in 2016.

Is this like alternative facts?, I mean when can plainly see with our eyes on that graph, that its lower percentage than in Q4-10
OK thats just percentage, the volume could be up which could counter balance that but we all know for year on year shipments have gone down
So you have 2 factors that say less, yet you add them together and you get a positive number! Thats not how maths works

 

[DavidGraham]

You are talking about two different things, overall GPU shipments decreased as part of the overall decline in PC shipments, the reduction affected APUs and iGPUs, However dGPUs didn't suffer any of these reductions, and in fact enjoyed a significant increase in demand and sales.